Singapore Memories Part 2 - Visitors!

We've been really lucky to have been visited by loads of lovely people across the last 1.5 years, and we've explored loads of Singapore, the surrounding islands. Here's some just from the last year.

Aaron and Corey

We had easily one of the best meals of my life with these guys at Waku Ghin in Marina Bay Sands, and finished up the memorable night at the Resident's bar at the top of the Sands, drinking whiskey and looking over Singapore.Truly magical night to top off a fun-filled visit from these guys! We also had our first visit to the superlative Singapore Zoo, visited the Mint Toy Museum and discovered the joys of home delivered McDonalds breakfast to treat hangovers. (I totally stole these photos from Aaron's Facebook page, as my photos from this visit are currently in another country)

Some undoubtedly high class champagne being swilled from plastic cups by the pool :)

Marina Bay drinks on the last night of their visit

Mum and Dad Thompson

Mum and Dad actually visited twice - in March 2015 and then again in August 2015. We did some river cruising, introduced them to durian and satay street (and the beer ladies at satay street), hung out at the kopitiam and had kaya toast, visited the botanic/orchid gardens, visited the Night Safari for the first time, and floated around the lazy river in our $1.50 water park. We also finally got to tick a visit to the fart-smelling Sungei Buloh wetlands reserve off my list, and I found out there was an inside to the Buddha Tooth Relic Museum (and of course saw the tooth itself). Mum and Dad and I found our local roti place together and tried our first marmite pork ribs. They were here to see Singapore turn 50 with us, and we ate coconut rolls and watched the military display broadcast on TV.

Visiting the Botanic Gardens

Mum going in for a durian kiss with Dad struggling to cope with the reality of the Durian Experience

Ma and Da Murray

Right before Eoin's mum headed for a hip operation, these guys came for a 10 day visit. We wanted to show them a little more of south east asia (not just "Asia Lite" in Singapore), so we dragged them to a beach in Phuket for a weekend, where me made them sleep in tents on the sand! We had such a great weekend walking, swimming, eating, walking, swimming and eating! Back in Singapore, we had a great time eating loads of new food with Liam, found some accidental fireworks for SEA games in Marina Bay, got the first visit into the Sultan's Mosque, and I think these guys were our most enthusiastic pool users!

Murrays at sunset on Mai Khao Beack in Phuket

Eoin and Catherine at the top of the Cloud Forest in Gardens by the Bay

McGoo

Eoin's best friend came to visit for about a week, and she was such a great visitor! She and Eoin share a pathological hatred of photos, so this is literally the only photo I got of them all week. We had a day at Universal Studios Singapore with McGoo, where we got to ride the best rollercoaster I've been on in years (and maybe ever) - the Cylon half of the Battlestar Galactica rollercoaster. We also forced poor McGoo to climb Mt Faber so that we could ride the cable car to Sentosa, and saw the very patriotic SG50 (i.e. Singapore 50th birthday celebration) version of the Supertree Grove light show. We had our first (and only) visit to the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel with McGoo and my first Singapore Sling! We visited the Night Festival and saw the Museum lit up with green eskimos before our brazillian BBQ dinner and the crowds chased us back home. She also taught me how to knit (again)!

So happy to be at Universal Studios

Simon

OK, Simon was only here for a few hours, but I got to do a memorable first with him - I got to go to the 1-Altitude bar at the top of One Raffles! There was a live band playing Crowded House when we got up there, and even though it was a little hazy, I was completely amazed at the view! It was so much better than I thought, and if you look in the background of this picture you can see we're actually looking down on Marina Bay Sands! Not an every-night place, but I totally enjoyed our quick visit.

A schooner of Singapore Sling (my second ever) at the top of Singapore

Fletch and Fi
Our last visitors (unless anyone is bored in the next 5 days), Fletch and Fi were here for just over a week over the F1 Grand Prix time. Unfortunately, they visited right as Singapore got coated by some pretty extreme haze, so some of our outdoor plans had to be re-thought. Also, Singapore kind of looked like a Silent Hill game / ghosty movie, so some of the prettiness (particularly at night) was a bit lost from some of the lookout points. We got our first look at the re-painted Sultan Mosque in Arab Street, got to go inside my FAVOURITE building in Singapore (Parkview Square, aka Gotham building), visited a cat cafe, ate Singaporean, Malay, Vietnamese and Taiwanese noodles, got to go inside the Sri Veeramakaliamman temple.

Fi and Fletch's "Whole New World" Moment in Arab St

Wow, it's the world's highest indoor waterfall!

Wall of Fame! 

We decorated our windows with our visitors (most cartoons by Eoin) so that we could remember the people who bothered to come all the way around the world to visit us. Thanks for all the company over the last little while - it's so good to have people come to refresh your wonder at some of the amazing things (and foods) available here, and look at things through other people's eyes. And any excuse to eat Satay St/Chilli crab/beef brisket is always welcome :)

Singapore Memories Part 1 - Trips

One of the best parts about living in Singapore has been the proximity to other countries! I think we get a little lonely down in Australia so far away from everywhere else, so Eoin and I have tried to make up for it in the last 1.5 years by travelling whenever our money, time and energy allowed it!

Now that I sit down to put a few of my favourites together (with Soulsavers playing in the background) it feels really epic! These are some of the trips from the last year (mostly because I have already packed the hard drive with photos from more than a year ago).

Bukit Lawang (Sumatra, Indonesia) 3-5 October 2014

In October last year, Eoin and I went to Bukit Lawang in Gunung Leuser National Park (in North Sumatra, Indonesia) to see some monkeys, apes and bats. It was an amazing trip that saw us trekking to spend the night in a "tent" in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of a flood. I got to see my first great apes - a female orangutan and her baby. We saw them from a distance at first, and then later as we were sitting down for some fruit, Mrs. Orangutan decided that she'd quite like some afternoon tea as well, and came right up to where our group was sitting (note from the photo below - those photos are taking using no zoom - she really came up to about 2-3 m away from us, and shared our watermelon). We also forded a river as it was about to burst, bathed in a flooded waterfall, watched a stupid macaque steal our immodium, saw some Thomas' leaf monkeys, white handed gibbons brachiating, and walked under a small family of siamangs. Oh yeah, and then we rafted back to town on inner tubes lashed together, and saw a bird of paradise while doing so. I forgot how awesome that weekend was!

One of the best moments of my whole life

The calm after the storm - our camping ground in the morning (post-waterfall baths)

The rain started as we were slithering down a pretty steep track, just before we had to cross the river to the campsite.

Welcome to camp! So cozy. Wow, GoPros make your arms look super long.

Rafting back to Bukit Lawang

Bhutan 19-25 October 2014

I wrote a little about our wonderful Bhutan trip here, but I'll take any excuse to think about it again! We had a great week-ish - we had a tour guide named Kinley (guides and tour agencies are required to visit Bhutan) who took us through Thimpu, Punakha, Paro, and walking on the Bumdra Trek (up to about 4100 m) to see the Tiger's Nest Monastery. Such a beautiful country - such cool, clean, fresh air! We got a liiiiiiittle bit lost on the way down the Bumdra Trek, and maybe almost got stranded for the night in the himalayas (poor Kinley wasn't a trekking guide!), but were rescued by a yak herder (seriously), and then driven back to town after our driver gave up on us by one of the restaurant workers. I loved Bhutan, I loved the people, I loved the colours, I fell in love with a river (Paro-cha, I love you like you were Haku from Spirited Away), and I loved the chilli cheese (the rest of your food was leavable).

Prayer flags at the BBS tower (Lover's Point) over Thimpu

Me at Dochula Pass, with my first glimpse of the himalayas 

Eoin at Dochula pass, with a few of the 108 stupas 

The 4100m peak at the top of the Bumdra trek (above the Bumdra monastery) 

Tiger's Nest Monastery after a LOOONG walk

Kuching (Borneo, Malaysia) 31 December 2014 - 4 January 2015

We headed to Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo almost immediately after we got home from our Australian Christmas visit. We flew in on the 31st, so we ended up heading down to the riverside opposite the Astana to ring in the New Year with a non-official fireworks display, and a wonderful time watching kids shoot awesome slingshot LED helicopters into the air.

LED helicopter and the giant light up Christmas tree at the promenade where we saw in the New Year

It rained a LOT of the time we were in Kuching. It was a lovely little town (Kuching means "cat" in Malay, so there are a few cat statues around), with a lot on interesting things to see. We went on a quick river cruise, hit up a few temples, parks, an interesting natural history museum, an aquarium, did a cooking class, ate a lot (including an ostrich burger), and swam in some awfully dirty ocean (at Santubong beach). We didn't get to go to the Bako National Park as planned, due to boats not running from rain/tides/rain/tides, but we did get to go kayaking through the Bornean jungle - MORE than made up for not seeing proboscis monkeys.

Accidental private boat trip! Yay for rain keeping everyone else away.

In a waterfall in a river in Borneo is my happy place.

Majestic explorers of the guided river tour! But there WERE crocodiles!

Learned to cook chicken curry, steamed dessert things with corn and ferns with fishy sambal (not our favourite...)

Yogyakarta (Java, Indonesia) 18-22 February 2015

Caught the ferry to Batam first to be able to fly with Indonesian domestic airlines to Yogyakarta for a long weekend (excellent times to travel in Singapore, but often booked out/prices inflated). Yogyakarta was a brilliant city - obviously a great arts culture in the city, interesting buildings and architecture around and a lovely centre for the main event in the area - Borobudur and Prambanan temples! Borobudur is a Buddhist temple (unusual in Indonesia), and Prambanan is a Hindu temple, and both are amazing complexes. We saw the sunrise over Borobudur from Setumbu Hill, then spent a full day looking around the temples. Borobudur was lovely as we got in the gates at about 6:30 and it wasn't too hot before we left at about midday, but Prambanan was HOT!

Borobudur upper levels with some kids practicing their English

Borobudur. Shush, it was early.

Prambanan temple complex

Phuket (Thailand) 4-6 June 2015

While Eoin's Mum and Dad were visiting, we took the opportunity to show them a little more of South East Asia, and went to Phuket for the weekend. We stayed in a dinkey little hotel right up in the north of the island called Micky Monkey - in tents on the beach! We had the whole place to ourselves, and most of Mai Khao (the beach) as well. It was nice and relaxing, and we swam and walked on the beach and

Beautiful Phuket sunset!

I can do good jumping photos too.

Micky Monkey Resort - we had the whole place to ourselves and watched the sunset from the white tent on the beach. Lovely memory.

The excuse to visit Phuket! Post jellyfish sting :)

So Long and Thanks For All the Fish Head Curry!

Another goodbye to another country is looming!

Eoin and I are leaving Singapore in exactly 8 days (leaving on October 5th)! I haven't written a great deal in Singapore, for a few reasons - partly just that I haven't had a heap of stuff to write about (lots of lovely tourist attractions to explore, but you can see the same photos I took by looking at the websites), partly because I know that writing some things in Singapore can get you in trouble, and partly because if you have nothing nice to say, sometimes you should say nothing. But the end is near, and the rose coloured glasses are phasing in and out, and I want to reflect on some of the things that I'm going to miss.

Singapore has been an interesting place to live. I have liked many things about it, and disliked a few as well. I've learned a lot, and I've eaten some delicious food. I've definitely had challenging moments, many of them work-related, many of the rest public-transport related :) I've had some wonderful moments as well, and I'm pretty sure that's what I'm going to take with me (not you, Mr. Leong, worst lab supervisor in the world. OK, you'll probably be in my head forever as well, but only as a cautionary "do no become this person" memory).

One of the big things is going to be hanging around in my local hawker market, and many of the other "heartland Singapore" experiences outside the shiny tourist attractions. I'm going to miss our juice lady, who sees Eoin coming and starts making our "2 Kalamansi Juice, no sweet". I'm going to miss the old man who spends his days sitting outside the Chinese religious shop (a whole shop of things to burn!) alternatively listening to and pencil-rewinding his casette tape. I'm going to miss the cranky old lady who makes you give her 10c to use the toilet (although she clearly isn't cleaning it). I'm going to miss the uncles who sit around the kopitiam nursing their teh tariks, combing their hair and waiting for the betting shop to open (and then all day after it's open...). I'm going to miss cai peng, kopi, coconut buns, kalamansi juice, even kaya toast! I'm going to miss these real bits of Singapore, my daily life and the people I see going about their daily lives more than I will miss Gardens By the Bay, Marina Bay, the Zoo - these are all lovely, but they are things you see, take a picture of and file away as tourist experiences.

The view from my favourite table at my favourite kopitiam/coffee shop in my local hawker market. I've drunk a lot of kopi/coffee from this spot.

I am going to write a few blog posts for my favourite memories for a few things - the trips we've been on, the visitors we've have, the food we've eaten, and some more of the "Singapore" things I'll miss.